Part II - ALABASTER DREAMS

         She picked up the phone back in her room and asked to be connected to Room 121. She quickly told him that seven would be fine, and that they could meet near the front desk. They would choose who would drive and which restaurant at that time.

         “See you at seven.”
         “OK.”

         She had over two hours to wait. She stripped out of her dress and pantyhose and put on a light robe and lay down on the bed. She intended to get up in a few minutes and shower. The tension of the day had left her limp.

         Her mind traveled back over eighteen months. It was just after the New Year when the itch hit. Her marriage with Brad was going nowhere. It had reached hum and was now speeding down the track to drum. Brenda was in her sophomore year of college. Her first year was spent commuting, but she transferred and was living away from home for the first time at URI in Kingston. Without Brenda in the house, there was nothing to sustain their relationship.

         She knew that part of the failure came from her rise in the world and his stagnation. She earned three to four times his salary, and those were in years when he held the same job for the entire year. Many years ago when both their careers had no limit, she had heard that there was little in life sadder than a forty-five year old account executive in radio and television. Brad had been one at that time, and was one now. He existed on handshakes, two drinks at lunch and a free joke.

         How many places had he worked? She had lost count. With the seminars and her earnings from the firm, anything he brought in was chump change. He was a glorified ‘gofer’ during the day while his nights were spent with beer and ESPN.

         Julie had poured herself into her work. She was the firm’s rainmaker in the Estate department, but unlike many who brought in the business, she did a lot of the work herself. She enjoyed writing professional articles and talking to local groups. Her evenings were spent with work she brought home, or writing speeches or articles. She often drifted off to sleep on the couch in the office she had made for herself in their home.

         They lived in Pound Ridge, just over the New York line, in a house they had been lucky enough to buy relatively cheap years ago. An inheritance from her parents had provided the large down payment that kept the payments affordable. She loved where she lived, she loved her work, but deep inside she knew she faced a lonely future at the rate she and Brad were going. She had tried in the past to inflate Brad with her boundless self-confidence, but he always sprung a leak.

         She took care of her physical needs herself. It wasn’t very satisfying, but it kept her from screaming. Just once she wanted to snuggle up to a man who was not staring at an Australian Rugby game with his can of Foster’s in his hand. In her mind dalliances at work or with clients could not be the answer, and she was not the person to seek out a one-night stand either in a local motel or while traveling. She wanted someone more permanent. The idea of stepping out of this marriage when Brenda graduated and into a new one sounded like the perfect solution to her.

         With such a brilliant, logical mind, and such a logical plan, why on earth did she have to choose the Internet to find the man?


         Bobby was a latecomer to computers and the Internet. He had bought his first computer in 1993 when he was forty-three. He had established his own practice the year before in one of those six story office buildings that dot the landscape of the western suburbs of Philadelphia. This one was in Wynnewood, several miles down Lancaster Pike from his home in Bryn Mawr. Wynnewood was not the wealthiest part of the Philadelphia Main Line, but it had one wonderful demographic that Bobby needed for his business. Along with offices, apartment buildings were placed here and there along the Pike, Wynnewood Road and Montgomery Avenue. In those apartments were old people. Old people die. Their estates must be probated. To do this, the executors turn to attorneys. Bobby was just such an attorney.

         He had taken up the specialty of wills, trusts and estates when he first graduated from law school and passed the bar. He liked the idea of giving people advice about arranging their affairs so that Uncle Sam reaped the smallest possible dividend from their demise.

         When he first hit the job market in the late 1970’s, he interviewed at all of the prestige, white shoe law firms in Philadelphia. Spalding, Lewis and Morris had been the first to hire him. Here he impressed the partners with his attention to detail, his quick mind, and the obvious confidence clients had in him once exposed to his personality. Yet he never seemed to reach out and pluck a partnership from the firm and after five years there, it became obvious that SL&M could find someone cheaper to replace him while retaining the clientele.

         Bobby was handicapped by the fact that he had never embraced the computer revolution that was sweeping his industry. The tax forms and the precise accounting that used to be done by hand were now prepared sitting at a keyboard. For the law firm, being able to print forms direct from a computer eliminated the many typists that used to take handwritten drafts and turn them into the final product.

         Staring at green numbers on a black screen took a lot of the romance out of the work for Bobby. Perhaps he could have learned how to use computers to do his work, he was the type of person who taught himself new techniques, but Bobby could never get the hang of writing commands in the DOS operating system environment. Given time and the arrival of Windows, he probably could have done so, but Spalding and company did not have that time.

         There was another problem to his makeup. When he parted company from Spalding he sought the services of a headhunting firm. They were impressed with his abilities and his obvious talent, and felt they had just the position for him. Another of Philadelphia’s prestige firms needed a man for its probate department, but the starting pay would be less than he earned at Spalding. Would Bobby be interested? His positive reply sent the headhunter to the phone in the next room to set up an interview. From the conversation he overheard, the firm wanted him to come over in the next hour. It was the next line that threw him for a loop.

         “Well, there is one slight impediment here. Recognize that this man looks like a refugee from the sixties.”

         Ouch, that hurt. Bobby knew he needed a haircut, but it was not just his thick hair that grew over his ears, but his entire approach to the business milieu. Bobby had never been blessed with the ability to look good in the uniform of the day, which was the suit. Casual days would not come on the scene for fifteen years, though it is doubtful they would have helped. No matter what he wore, Barb said he looked a bit like a trained chimpanzee.

         He was short; his legs were short but his chest was best described as barrel shaped. His arms were long for his body, so that his shirtsleeves were often too short. Barb had often come with him when he chose his clothes for work. She watched while he was measured and made suggestions for colors and fabrics, but when she saw the final result, she always laughed and resorted to her favorite nickname for him, ‘Zippy’. “No matter what we do with you, you look like Zippy the Chimp” she would ruefully say. She could never break him of his habit of wearing boots. He found he would wear out the heels on a pair of shoes in less than two weeks, and then put a hole in the sole in two months, so he shod his feet at the local Army-Navy store. They carried the work boots favored by construction workers.

         He had started shaving at age twelve. At Spalding he had been clean-shaven at first, but when his five o’clock shadow kept showing up at lunch, he had grown a beard and mustache to adapt. It was not a neat beard. His attempts to trim it often left uneven patches. Barb tried but did not have the patience.

         “Maybe you are not supposed to be a lawyer.”
         “Nyahhhh. Maybe you are not supposed to be a musician. You can put your fingers on those frets but you can’t trim my beard neatly. I will never understand that.”

         He was amazed when Hahn & Spencer hired him at that first interview. They assured him that they were new to computers and he could grow with them. He expected the job to be one of meeting clients and giving advice, in addition to the preparation of documents and tax returns. He had developed the ability to do individual income tax returns in addition to those needed for the estates and trusts and this excited the partners of the firm.

         He was disappointed in his expectations. Hahn and Spencer seemed to do everything possible to keep him away from their clientele. He became their super technician. His office was the last on a long hall, next to the supply closet and past the copying room. He seemed to inherit the work the partners and more senior attorneys could not finish. He described himself as the man hired to clean up the stables after the horses had gone to the pasture.

         The clients he met were impressed with his knowledge, and liked his affability, but usually he only met them when one of the partners would ‘bring in our human computer’. Despite the drawbacks of the job, he made the work meaningful. He learned a lot of probate law. It was not a branch of the law where recommendations were earned. Those beyond the grave could not tell others how well their estate was handled, while those who served as executors found their duties a once in lifetime event. The question “Who is your probate attorney?’ was not one that came up at many Philadelphia cocktail parties.

         Brian was freelancing in New York when Barb stumbled on a better situation for Bobby. Bobby did their own income taxes, but Barb knew that many members of the Orchestra used a Philadelphia attorney whose office was across the street from the Academy of Music. She had a consultation with him once because she worried that Bobby was not giving them every deduction they could use. She asked Bobby why her fellow players were getting big refunds while they owed money. “They cheat and lie” was his answer. She repeated this in her meeting with Ralph. He laughed and said, “He’s probably right.”

         In addition to a large income tax practice, Ralph Shapiro practiced tax law, and also did estate planning and wrote wills. He had a reputation as a brilliant tax attorney, but was infamous for lengthy delays when he administered estates or was asked to write a will. The prevailing wind that blew through his clientele was “sit on him until he completes the work.”

         Bobby met Ralph at a fund raising event for the Orchestra. Ralph was fascinated by Bobby’s grasp for detail and his ability to stay with him as he spun off buzzwords like Grits, Grats, Grunts and the relationship of AGI to AMT. Ralph invited Bobby to visit his office to see if they might work together.

         “I am sitting on a gold mine, but getting the work done is another thing. Maybe you’d like a shot at it. Whatever you are making now, I will match it and raise it ten percent.”
         “Sounds great, but I also want exposure to the clients. Right now I feel more like an errand boy.”
         “Believe me you will get exposure. If you can get half these people off my back, I don’t care if I ever see them again.”
         “Don’t you work with anyone?”
         “I have an attorney on my staff, Edgar Stone. Have you heard of Edgar?”
         “Can’t say that I have.”
         “Nice guy, but he lacks a certain motivation. Then there is my father. He founded the firm. He’s eighty and, believe me, not to be trusted with anything, but he raises hell around the office.”
         “Sounds interesting. Why don’t I come see you Monday after five? Do you have time then?”
         “Sure. That will be fine.”

         Ralph was as good as his word in permitting him to interface with the clientele. When Bobby started his own practice in 1992, most of his clients followed him from Ralph’s office. In addition, when he found out Bobby could do tax returns, Ralph began scheduling appointments for him during the busy season, and on finding that Bobby could practice before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, he began to use him to argue cases in United States Tax Court.

         Bobby found Ralph’s description of his small office to be very accurate, but he also found Ralph had neglected to tell him a few other things. Ralph was impossible for his clients to reach on the telephone, so that often Bobby had to field calls from complaining clients. Just calming them down was difficult, but once they felt he had a pipeline into Ralph’s mind, peace broke out. His father might have once been a brilliant man, but now he replied to most questions with a reassuring phrase, “Sure, Sure.” Dad was not sure of what he was sure of, but it was reassuring to the clientele, many of whom had originally come to see the ‘old man,’ as they now called him, thirty years ago. To call Edgar Stone an attorney was a stretch of the imagination, but the man allowed Ralph to tell clients that he had turned their matters over to Edgar, his staff attorney. From that moment their affairs entered a black hole, never to reappear until threats by the Disciplinary Board were served.

         There was one other disquieting matter and that was the rumor that Ralph was being weaned from substances that had impaired his ability to do his work. Bobby, a man who neither drank nor used drugs, could not recognize exactly what the problem was and only learned about it from Deanna, Ralph’s young office manager. She was not sure, having joined the firm only eighteen months before. He thought it unlikely to be alcohol, but rather thought the latter to be a replacement. How else to explain the bottle of Scotch that Ralph pulled out often and offered to his clients?

         Deanna was fighting her own battle with Claire, Ralph’s sixty-plus receptionist and before that, his father’s secretary. Hers was a battle over territory. Deanna thought that Claire, like Edgar, was just another of the non-functioning parts of the office. She was determined to see the door to the office smack Claire’s broad rear as she left for good, but her task was complicated by the fact that Claire was Rachel’s pipeline to office matters. She did not work in the office but excercised a certain droit de seignior as Mrs. Shapiro.

         Bobby agreed with Deanna about Edgar, but he had mixed feelings about Claire. Two of his first new clients in the Shapiro office were Mrs. Zilber and Mrs. Toler, friends of Edna, Claire’s sister. These two women, in their early eighties, often called for investment advice, something Bobby was not prepared to give. Neither needed wills because Robert Brown, an old attorney who lived in their high rise, had prepared theirs’, but Bobby knew that he would be the probate lawyer to handle the estates.

         Bobby’s ambivalence about Claire drove a wedge between him and Deanna. She had launched her siege of the receptionist’s desk just after her successful power play that rid the office of Edgar. She had coordinated her effort with Ralph’s father and Rachel. With Claire gone, she would be able to hire her sister Willa to take Claire’s place. Instead, Bobby talked Ralph into hiring Nisse to assist both Deanna and Bobby. Nisse had worked at Hahn. She was younger than Deanna and a bit of a flake, but Bobby always found her to be a good worker once motivated.

         Deanna knew about Barb and Brian as early as March 1990 when she came upon them embraced in the hall near the elevators. She pretended not to notice, putting her key in the Ladies Room lock and slipping inside. There was no question of telling Bobby. Why tell a bastard who wouldn’t go to bat for her in the matter of Claire?

         Was it guilt that made Barb go out to the pound and get Alabaster for Bobby? Why anyone would call a gray and white dog Alabaster was beyond her, but Bobby chose the name for the setter-shepherd mix. The monster grew to over ninety pounds, but Bobby never tired of walking her and playing with her. Sometimes on weekends he would take her to the office when he was working. The dog had the habit of greeting Deanna with a good crotch sniff.

         After thirteen years of marriage, children were not part of their equation, but to him the dog was the next best thing. While Barb dressed in her gowns and played her viola on stage with the Orchestra, he sat home with Alabaster. She began to play with a number of small ensembles on nights when free. He attended several of these concerts when they were nearby, and was there the night Brian played the oboe in an octet with the Berlioz Quartet, but his only opinion of him was that his slicked down hair looked terrible. He knew he was one of Ralph’s clients and had won an audition to be a member of the Orchestra, but beyond that, Bobby did not think of him until he received the letter from Munich.

         The settlement Barb and he reached was equitable. She was represented by Harold Green, a well-known Philadelphia divorce attorney. Sharon Lipper was his lawyer. He kept Alabaster and the house with the equity therein. It was on the wrong side of Lancaster Pike in Bryn Mawr, but when they bought it, it seemed a paradise. She kept her viola and all her pension rights. She owned the instrument free and clear. The loan was paid off. The piece of wood they had paid $67,000 for in 1980 was now worth $150,000. When he met in her office, Sharon opined that she felt he was getting the short end of the stick , but as he noted, “We can’t cut the Goddamn thing in half.” Alabaster whimpered her agreement.

         Barb did not even fly back from San Francisco for the final signing of papers, but rather delegated that duty to Deanna. Deanna could keep a secret, including the fact that Barb had already retained Ralph to do her and Brian’s taxes in the future. They had flown direct to the West Coast on their return from the Orchestra’s European tour in the spring of 1991. Barb posted a letter to Bobby from Munich telling him that she could no longer take care of Zippy and Alabaster, but needed to devote her attention to Brian and her new job. She had auditioned for the first violist chair in March and was notified that she had won the position in May, just before they left for the tour. Brian would be freelancing in the Bay area, but all were convinced it would not be long before an orchestra out there hired him.

         Claire took the news worse than Bobby did. Deanna made sure she told her. Two days later while lunching with Edna and the two old ladies, she had a stroke, which paralyzed her lower left side and left her unable to speak clearly. Edna moved in with her.

         Bobby soldiered on for Ralph for another year before he left in June and began to practice on his own. Ralph did not like it, but by now his obsession was religion, and he saw this as the invisible hand of God. Nisse followed Bobby to become his secretary, office manager and general dogsbody. He offered to rent the room he had used in Ralph’s office as a place to meet clients who preferred not to come to Wynnewood, but Deanna would not hear of it, and talked Rachel up against it. Ralph gave way before the greater force. Sharon Lipper suggested he rent a desk in her office, which he did. It looked better on his letterhead to have offices in both Philadelphia and Wynnewood.

         Nisse had her baby in late 1996. It was right after she threw Jon out of the house again, only to let him back in a week later. Roxanne looked like neither of them, but it did not matter to them. She returned to work six weeks after delivering, bringing a playpen to the office. By now she was driving a 1977 Aspen Bobby had located in a garage rented by Mrs.Zilber. He was flabbergasted when Robert Brown read the will to him. The old lady was actually ninety-two. Two great nephews were each given $50,000, but the balance of the estate was left to Bobby for his devoted service.

         He had always cringed when Nisse, or Deanna or Claire before her, had told him that Mrs. Zilber was on the phone. He knew she would be crying about interest rates and what they were doing to her earnings. Couldn’t she get more than five and a half percent? Her broker had put her into an Australian stock yielding over eleven percent. Bobby always reasoned that the broker got the same phone calls and thought the foreign stock was his way to please her. At her age if the stock plummeted, she would probably die of the shock. In the meantime she was getting her eleven percent.

         Why hadn’t she left anything to the broker? He had no idea. The Estate was worth $900,000. Life was ridiculous and absurd. The Internet would soon be calling.

TO: "PART III - THE PROFESSIONAL HEIR"